HIGH ON HYPOCRISY

I doubt that one person in 10,000 has taken in the title "Partnership for a
Drug-Fee America" and thought for a moment what the heck it means.

Does this mean ridding the nation of Tylenol and Robitussin? Of course not.
The campaign's saturation slogans are aimed at the usual suspects, bad ones
- -- cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy.

Yet right within the title of this organization, which relies heavily on
federal funding, is the root of a fundamental problem about the whole drug
issue. That problem is hypocrisy.

A drug-free America? If you are ill, "drug-free" is the last thing you
want. The same if you run a tavern. People who talk "drug-free" don't
really mean it.

The National Football League doesn't mean it, although it talks the same
game. It will stretch a lineman over the rack for having a dirty urine
sample. At the same time it will look the other way while trainers pump
pain-killers into the same player to keep him on the field.

Sports Illustrated recently had a cover story on crippled football heroes
- -- Johnny Unitas, unable now to use his throwing hand; Earl Campbell,
unable to walk long distances.

A lot of these injuries are simply the breaks of the game. But a lot of
these players are far more torn up because trainers deadened their pain so
they could drag themselves back out to the huddle.

Texas Monthly carried a sad story a couple of years ago about former Dallas
Cowboys receiver Golden Richards. Addicted to prescription pain killers,
Richards lowered himself to every ruse to feed his habit.

Was this Golden Richards' fault -- the fact that a wispy wide-out took too
many bone-crushing hits and found himself popping pills in retirement to
get by? Sure, there are ways to deal with pain legally and responsibly. But
without pain, Richards wouldn't need pain killers.

When one reads what other retired football players now must do to get by,
Richards hardly comes across as noteworthy.

The movie Traffic could be considered sobering entertainment, except that
for a lot of people a key underlying message -- about American hypocrisy --
won't get through. The movie artfully depicts Washington wheelers and
dealers bathing their brains in bourbon while they plot strategies to make
the nation "drug-free."

The inebriation and the dependency that come from a back-room crutch are no
less hobbling than the back-alley scourge these policy makers fight. The
only difference: Their crutch is sold retail.

- -- Mug shots and shot glasses --

The swath of tragedy cut by alcohol alone ought to convince us that that
the best thing we can do about drugs is talk sensibly and make it possible
that people who need help can get it.

Robert Downey Jr. needs help. Darryl Strawberry needs help. Maybe jail is
the only help that will stick. But I do believe in their mug-shot faces,
faces of denial, we see our own denial. We refuse to treat an illness as an
illness. We are more comfortable with terms like "drug war."

Of the billions we spend fighting drugs only a third goes to treatment and
education. The rest goes to trying to be at down a fire that only flares as
we wave our jacket at it. Seize a boatload of cocaine? The price just went
up. The only way to drive down prices is to reduce demand. (Basic
economics, applying to everything but the new White House energy policy.)

Maybe mega-buck media campaigns do make a difference in changing minds
about drug abuse. Good for that.

Since one in 1,000 people probably doesn't see the hypocrisy in
"Partnership for a Drug-Free America," maybe we shouldn't worry. But that
one may be a teen-ager who is free-basing her brains away as her father
stews about her over his Scotch.

John Young's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.